President Trump hits China with tariffs on steel and aluminium

The policy is designed to help US steelmakers, which lost three quarters of its jobs between 1962 and 2005ALEXANDER KOERNER/GETTY IMAGES

President Trump has said that he will impose steep tariffs on steel and aluminium imports, prompting alarm from trading partners and threatening to trigger a trade war with China.

The US will impose tariffs of 25 per cent for steel imports and 10 per cent for aluminium from next week.

“What has been allowed to go on for decades is disgraceful,” Mr Trump said. “When it comes to a time when our country can’t make aluminium and steel, you almost don’t have much of a country.” He said that the tariffs would remain “for a long period of time”.

Mr Trump had long threatened such measures but it caught several of his advisers off guard. Gary Cohn, his chief economic adviser, and Jim Mattis, the…

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